The 10 Best Books Through Time
This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
New York Times, 190 Books
Each fall, the editors of the Times Book Review select the best fiction and nonfiction titles of the year. Our editors read, nominate, discuss, and debate the merits of each year’s books, working together to land upon our list. The practice of editors sharing their picks of the year dates nearly back to the beginning of the Book Review in October 1896. But over the years, that list has taken many different names and forms. Now, we call this list the “Ten Best Books” and have done so since 2004.
who voted:
Trade sources differ: a C-SPAN–based 2015 blog post tallied roughly 16 New York Times Book Review staffers, while a 2023 Publishers Weekly profile said the desk now has “more than 20 editors, critics and reporters” To keep our rankings conservative, we therefore credit each NYT list to 10 voters.
This list is a yearly book award, and was added to this site about 3 years ago.